Luke Dormehl - page 295

Based on what Steve Wozniak has said in the past, it would be very easy to come to the conclusion that the Apple co-founder is far from excited about the Apple Watch. In an interview with CNNMoney late last year, Woz seemingly dismissed it as a “luxury fitness band,” and said that he had gotten “real negative on smartwatches.”

What a difference a few months makes. In a new interview for the BBC, Wozniak touches on everything from the new Steve Jobs movie, to rumors about an Apple car, to — yes — his thoughts on the Apple Watch.

And if he wasn’t enthusiastic before, he certainly is now!

Apple opened its new store in San Jose, California, on Valentine’s Day, just a day after closing the nearby mini-store that was the last of its kind.

Located just minutes from the mini-store location, Apple Store Oakridge was unveiled at midnight, with employees removing the black plastic that covered the glass. The new retail venue opened at 10 a.m. on Valentine’s Day, with a queue of around 85 people gathering — all of whom received a gray, commemorative Apple T-shirt to mark the event.

Everyone might be tripping over themselves to talk about the possible Apple Car, but there’s a much-more imminent Apple device rumored to be on the way: the 12-inch+ “iPad Pro” tablet.

Over the weekend, French Apple-watching website Nowhereelse.fr shared a handful of new pictures of the mythical plus-sized iPad, claiming to be photos of a third-party case for the device.

The photos give some indication of just how big the iPad Pro would look alongside today’s iPad Air 2. As with existing current iPad cases, the iPad Pro case features cutout sections for a Lightning connector, microphone, volume rocker, mute switch, rear-facing camera, and power button. It’s not clear from the picture whether the tablet will boast a 12.2-inch screen or a 12.9-inch one: both of which have been rumored so far.

Check out another picture — and additional information — after the jump.

For a brand that made all our dreams come true as kids, Nintendo sure seems content to play the Bowser-style troll these days.

First of all, the company announced that it is finally embracing YouTube videos featuring game footage; only to turn around and reveal that content-makers will have to give much of the ad revenue to Nintendo. Now, Nintendo has said that after years of taking down third-party emulators, it’s giving us an official iOS app at long last.

“Will it allow us to play the company’s classic games?” you may breathlessly ask.

You must be joking!

Three-and-a-half years after the debut of Siri, virtual assistants haven’t yet become a user interface element on par with, say, the mouse cursor — but that’s not through any lack of trying.

According to a new study carried out for Venture Beat, Siri not only defeats Microsoft rival Cortana and Google’s Google Now automated assistants in understanding English; it absolutely slays them when it comes to other languages.

¡Viva Siri!

To use hip hop parlance, Canadian rapper hip hop artist Drake has “dropped” a new surprise mixtape on iTunes. The precursor to his next studio album, “If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late” is a 17-track opus — announced late Thursday via Drake’s Twitter.

Boasting guest appearances from Lil Wayne, Travi$ Scott, and PARTYNEXTDOOR, the mixtape is expected to be the artist’s last under his current contract with label Cash Money Records.

However, while hip hop-heads will no doubt see the release as the big news here (and, if you’re a Drake fan, check out the track “You & The 6”), for Apple-watchers it’s significant for another reason.

Saturday Night Live turns forty this year, and what better way to celebrate than by making a sizeable portion of the show’s most classic sketches available to enjoy whenever you want? With that in mind, a newly-launched iOS app boats more than 5,500 freely-available sketches, spanning the show’s entire four-decade (and counting) run.

Although SNL is already available on Netflix, the free app not only allows you to easily enjoy classic sketches on your subway ride to work, but also lets you search for appearances by individual cast members or characters — as opposed to having to trawl through entire episodes to get there.

While many of us will be celebrating Valentine’s Day this Saturday, for Apple it represents the end of an era.

At 10pm today, Apple will close its existing Oakridge retail store in San Jose, California — with a new, larger one set to open Saturday morning at 10am. In the process, Apple will have marked the end of its mini-store experiment, with the Oakridge venue being the last of its kind.

First launched in 2004, Apple’s mini-stores were an effort to quickly roll out new Apple Stores to keep up with demand at a time when the company was unable to find enough of the larger sites it was looking for. Nine mini-stores were opened in all — ranging in size from 2,000-square-feet down to a tiny 500-square foot.

Despite being a brand targeted at creatives, along with Steve Jobs’ background as an acid-dropping hippie, Apple’s always been pretty resolutely anti-drug in its message. Perhaps that’s not such a surprise, really: When you become the most valuable publicly-traded company in history, it makes sense not to do things that could offend your investors.

Previously, Apple’s anti-drug ethos has meant that “Apps that encourage excessive consumption of alcohol or illegal substances, or encourage minors to consume alcohol or smoke cigarettes, will be rejected.” Even when apps like the controversial cannabis-growing game Weed Firm do somehow slip through the cracks and make it to the top of the free iPhone games chart, Apple has booted them out as soon as it’s made aware of their existence.

But as marijuana laws change, so too does Apple.

I’ve always found the fetishistic quality of unboxing videos to be a bit strange, if I’m honest. Even weirder, though, are the quasi-sadomasochistic videos unleashed by “stress testers” like YouTube’s seemingly damaged Ukrainian tech lover hater TechRax, whose videos watch like an Apple ad directed by the Marquis de Sade.

Fifty Shades of Space Gray, amirite?

Anyway, TechRax’s latest video shows an innocent young iPhone 6 meeting its maker at the hands of some former soda cans heated into a hot liquid using a mini-furnace. If you’ve wondered whether it’s a good idea to store your beloved Apple handset in the same drawer as a puddle of molten metal, you’ll get your answer after the jump.

It’s not pretty.

Thanks to a groundbreaking deal between Marvel Studios and Sony Pictures, we’re finally about to see Spider-Man rejoin his Marvel brethren Captain America and Iron Man as part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

But having sat through a disappointingly botched reboot, how best should everyone’s favorite web-slinger be used? Forget about another tired origin story; 50 years of Spider-Man comics have given filmmakers plenty of great stories should they choose to adapt them–stories like the ones we’re about to suggest.

Without further ado, then, here are Cult of Mac’s picks for the Spider-Man comic arcs we’d love to see spun up on the big screen. Swing out past the jump for more details:

Given Apple’s tendency to only do major redesigns for its iPhones every other year, we’re most likely not going to get a bold new iPhone form factor until late 2016.

With that said, however, Jony Ive’s design team don’t take too many days off — which means that there are constantly new ideas being churned out that may well radically change how we think of an iPhone looking. A new Apple patent application published today shows off an iPhone with a wraparound display, resembling something not a million miles away from a fourth- or fifth-generation iPod nano.

Until now, Apple’s been dead-set on making every iPhone thinner than the last, but the company’s proposed “wrap-around display” makes it seem like that strategy may no longer be on the cards.

Thanks to the wonder of drones, we’ve had a few airborne glimpses of Apple’s forthcoming Apple 2 campus in Cupertino. Until now, however, ground-level pictures have been in decidedly short supply.

That changed yesterday, when Apple gave reporters from San Francisco news outlet KQED an up-close-and-personal glimpse at its flying saucer-shaped headquarters, which will eventually house up to 15,000 employees.

Along with photos showing the development, the reporters also heard a few environmentally friendly factoids about the campus — such as the fact that it will use recycled water to flush toilets, solar arrays to meet the majority of energy needs, and that the older buildings Apple inherited when it bought the land were broken down and recycled for new building materials.

You can check out the images after the jump:

If you’re a Pinterest user with an eye on app discovery, Apple has the perfect deal for you. The companies have partnered to create “App Pins,” allowing users to install iOS apps without having to leave the Pinterest app.

App Pins work like regular pins on Pinterest’s virtual pinboard, only with the added functionality of an “Install” button next to the regular “Pin it,” alongside an extra “view this on the App Store” option. App Pins can be spotted by way of a small “App Store” badge that incorporates Apple’s logo.

“We can be a really powerful service for app discovery, which is a problem that still really hasn’t been solved,” Pinterest co-founder Evan Sharp told The New York Times. “Our specialty is really connecting people to the things they want to do.”

Anyone who enjoys old-school games will most likely have experienced the crushing disappointment of finding a favorite title in the App Store — only to discover that whichever company ported the game to iOS took no care whatsoever in doing so.

Fortunately, one game series you could absolutely never throw that accusation at is the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, thanks to the remastering efforts of fans Christian Whitehead and Simon Thomley. For anyone interested in game restoration and porting, their story is kind of inspirational.

As highly-desirable and premium-priced tech goodies, it’s no surprise that iPhones have previously been among the most stolen items we carry around on a regular basis. In fact, police have even correlated spikes in crime rate to the launch of new iPhone models — suggesting that it’s not just upstanding citizens who keep an eye on the blogosphere.

That all changed when Apple added its Activation Lock feature with iOS 7, allowing users to locate, lock and even wipe their iPhones remotely in the event that they are stolen. Based on that, a new report claims that the number of stolen iPhones fell significantly in major cities around the world between September 2013, when Activation Lock was introduced, and one year later.

Take that, iCriminals!

One of the big selling points of wearable devices is that they will be able to help us keep track of various fitness metrics.

However, a new report claims smartphones are just as good (if not slightly better) at tracking physical activity as the most popular wearables on the market.

The hope with Apple Pay is that everywhere there are financial transactions, there will be Apple’s mobile payment solution — and, yes, that includes the sky.

Starting next week, passengers on select JetBlue Airways flights will be able to pay for food, drinks and assorted on-board amenities (such as upgrading seats) using their iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. This gives JetBlue the claim to fame that it is the first airline to accept Apple Pay at 35,000 feet.

As tech fans, it’s easy to take a forward-looking view of technology: constantly excited about the next iPhone or smart wearable, while our old gadgets gather dust in the back of a cupboard somewhere.

Hoping to reach some of those tech owners, the SIU School of Medicine in Illinois is currently requesting old iPods as part of what it calls the “Music and Memory” program to help people suffering from Alzheimer’s disease or other forms of dementia.

As the medical school explains it, the iPods are used for a form of musical therapy designed to help calm patients and make them happier and more sociable by playing music from their younger years.

I’m a total sucker for ads which jump back in time to show how things have changed over the years, and that’s exactly what American Express has done with its latest commercial for Apple Pay: showing how Apple’s mobile payment technology is, in fact, just the latest in a long line of innovations used for making financial transactions easier.

The ad features archival appearances by famous AmEx cardholders ranging from Jerry Seinfeld and Jim Henson to Tina Fey, for a mashup ad that is more fun than you’d ever expect from a credit card company.

It’s also another triumph for Apple Pay, which has now been promoted in ads by Capital One, MasterCard, Chase, Wells Fargo and Bank of America, among others. Check out AmEx’s ad after the jump:

If you’re a creative director, designer, or just enjoy using your Mac for graphics editing, you may want to check out the new Photoshop rival, Affinity Photo.

Currently available as a public beta, this pro-level photo software and graphics editor boasts some pretty impressive features — with an emphasis on real-time editing, meaning no previews, “apply” buttons, or hanging around to wait for an effect to render.

You can read up on more details after the jump. Best of all? Unlike the subscription-only Photoshop, you can currently download Affinity Photo for free.

Knowing how much is at stake, things can get pretty vicious when you’re a manufacturer with a shot at providing Apple with vital components for its next generation iPhone.

We’ve known for some time that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. and Samsung have been battling it out over who gets picked by Apple to make its forthcoming A9 processors — with Samsung apparently having the advantage currently, due to offering Apple a better deal financially.

TSMC isn’t taking this lying down, however. In fact, the company is currently suing an ex-employee who allegedly leaked R&D secrets to Samsung; thereby allowing it to both catch up in the chip fabrication business.

I have very few complaints about iOS 8, and based on casual conversations I’ve had with friends plus the high percentage of users who have upgraded to Apple’s latest mobile OS, I’d suggest the same thing is true across the board.

One part of iOS I use very rarely, however, is Notification Center, which aims to be a one-stop-shop for all the information you need to know, but instead looks like a strangely un-Apple mass of informational overload.

Apparently Stockholm-based MobileCreative designers Petter Andersson, Friðgeir Torfi Ásgeirsson and Jonas Jerlström feel the same way, because they’ve come up with a concept video showing a new possible notification interface for iOS. And you know what? I kind of love it.

I can’t wait to get my hands on an Apple Watch, but there are a few people out there who are less than excited by the prospect of a miniature computer you can wear on your wrist. Case in point: exam moderators.

Ahead of the Apple Watch going on sale, universities in the U.K. are beginning to issue blanket bans on students wearing any kind of watch in the exam hall — based on the fact that those teachers charged with overseeing exams aren’t able to discern the difference between a smartwatch, which could be potentially used to help cheat, and a regular, dumb, tells-the-time watch.

In my experience, Apple Store employees are some of the hardest-working, most reasonable and (despite the fact they’re employed to sell you things) trustworthy people in retail. According to Manhattan district attorney, however, that description isn’t universal.

The DA is indicting four former Apple Store employees, plus a dental office receptionist, for an Apple-related scam that ultimately defrauded Barclays Bank of $700,000, using ill-gotten Apple gift cards.

Here’s how it happened.